Archives for September, 2008

As usual, when Jon Stewart nails it: My goodness! Two political posts in a row. I’d better watch myself, or I’ll become one of those dime-a-dozen political bloggers that I complain about. Not that I count this, given that it’s just a Daily Show video clip. Still, it’s so spot-on that I couldn’t resist. Don’t…

I’m a Detroit guy. I was born there and raised there for the first ten years of my life. After that, my family moved to the suburbs, but still Detroit’s my hometown, even though I spent 20 years away from southeast Michigan. Consequently, I really, really hated what has been happening there since January. That’s…

This is getting to be monotonous, but it’s a monotony that I like, as should anyone who supports scientific medicine and hates the resurgence of infectious diseases that antivaccinationists have been causing of late with their fearmongering about vaccines that frightens parents into refusing to vaccinate their children. It’s the drumbeat of studies, seemingly coming…

Since I’ve been discussing histidine and histamine today (how’s that for a segue to an entirely different topic?), it seems like the perfect time to mention a story I saw yesterday about the ten worst cities for fall pollen, such as ragweed, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). I was amazed…

Some people should keep their “gut feelings” to themselves. You know the type: People who have no knowledge about a topic or, even worse, just enough knowledge to sound as if they have a clue about it to people who don’t have a clue but who are at the same time easily spotted as utterly…

ResearchBlogging.org, that aggregator for blogging about peer-reviewed scientific research, has been given a makeover and a major overhaul. New features include: There will be much, much more on our official launch date of September 2, but here is a partial list of new features: Multiple language support (and 30 new German-language bloggers!) Topic-specific RSS feeds…

Hanging out last night, the final night of a three day holiday weekend, I was momentarily at a loss for what to write. For one thing, having spent a good chunk of the last three days unpacking the remaining stuff we’ve had in our basement in boxes for the last six or seven months, my…

Say it ain’t so! Skeptics’ Circle host from earlier this year Rod Clark informs me that another celebrity has been sucked into maw of antivaccine propagandizing disguised as an autism charity. The one luring these celebrities in, of course, is that tireless, ever-Indigo campaigner against vaccines and for quackery Jenny McCarthy, flexing her D-list celebrity…

This totally slipped my mind, and I’ve been meaning to mention it for a few days now, which makes the holiday weekend a perfect time to mention it. Seed Magazine and ScienceBlogs are supporting an effort to raise $10,000 for various science projects supported by DonorsChoose. To help the cause, all you have to do…